Matt—The Callahan Brothers (Brazos Bend Book 2) by Emily March Read Free Book Online Page A

difference does it make to you what I do for a living? Our worlds are a million miles apart.”
    “Not always,” he grumbled.
    Torie pounced on that like paparazzi on a scandal. “What do you mean? What happened? Have you and I met before?”
    His jaw went hard and his gaze glittered with hostility. At first, Torie didn’t think he’d answer, but finally, he said, “No. It wasn’t you. It was one of your cohorts.”
    She leaned away, studied him. He had a white-knuckle grip on the wheel. Ooh. This looked serious. Trepidation swelled inside her as she asked, “Did a photographer interrupt a mission? Maybe compromise an asset? Blow somebody’s cover?”
    “Read a lot of spy thrillers, do you?”
    “What happened, Callahan? I have a right to know.”
    He snorted.
    “I do. You asked me on a date if we survived and we survived.” The alarm in his gaze caused her stomach to take a bitter roll as she pressed on. “Now it’s obvious that date will never happen despite the fact the heat between us all but melted rock. You owe me an explanation, Callahan.”
    “I saved your life. I don’t owe you squat.”
    She lifted her chin. “You’ll damage my self-esteem if you walk away and leave me in the dark. I’m fragile.”
    He snorted. “Fragile as granite. What you are, Victoria, is a piece of work.”
    She folded her arms and stared at him. “What happened, Matt? Did paparazzi cause you grief sometime?”
    “Grief? Hell. A camera-toting stalker sued me for attempted murder and damned near cost me my career. That’s not causing me grief. That’s assault.”
    She put the clues together. “You beat up a photographer?”
    “The sonofabitch intruded on a private moment between me and a lady and bared my ass to the world. He’s damned lucky he’s still breathing!”
    Suspicion niggled at her brain. “Who was the lady?”
    “It doesn’t matter. That’s all the explanation you’re going to get. Now be quiet. I need to concentrate. We’ll be landing in just a few minutes.”
    Torie shut her mouth, but her mind kept running. She ran through the list of altercations she could recall between photographers and their subjects in the past few years. She had lots to choose from until she narrowed them down to a photographer, an American man who wasn’t on the paparazzi’s radar, and a female celebrity. Of those, she could recall only four.
    And only one that involved a man’s naked butt.
    The image was one she easily recalled. It’d been splashed all over the European tabloids two, maybe three years ago. It’d been a beach shot taken with a zoom lens. He’d lain atop the woman, nude, his body blocking everything but her face. The Italian movie star’s face was easily recognizable in the photograph, as was the ecstasy in her expression.
    Three months after the photos were published, the photographer who’d taken them was dumped at the emergency room door of a Paris hospital with both index fingers broken. He blamed the actress’s lover, whose identity remained a mystery.
    Torie had drooled over that picture for ... well ... ever since. It’s a wonder she hadn’t recognized his rear in the cenote. “You dated Sophia Martinelli?”
    His hands jerked. The helicopter dipped. “How the hell—?” He broke off abruptly, set his jaw, and said through clenched teeth, “Not another word.”
    She complied because the landing field was in sight and radio traffic between Callahan and the base intensified. As the giggles—of relief, amusement, she wasn’t sure which—rose within her, she tried to hold them back. She did.
    But when the helicopter landed and he reached up to flip off switches, she could contain it no longer. Laughter burst from her mouth like water from a fountain jet.
    Matt Callahan glared at her. She attempted to swallow her mirth. “I’m sorry. I just ... that picture ... I know it. It’s karma. I think today was meant to happen.”
    “Get hold of yourself, Ms. Bradshaw.”
    “It’s the